author(s)
Poorna Chandra S, Srinivas Reddy KM and Jagadish KS

abstract
Among the mites associated with honey bees, ectoparasitic mite Varroa jacobsoni Oudemans is one of the important pest of bees, its infestation levels in Apis cerana colonies was recorded during September 2019 to March 2020 at three different locations of Southern Karnataka. The study revealed that, despite of different ecological conditions, infestation of V. jacobsoni on Apis cerana pupal brood was found at all the three locations with varying levels. Although, their peak infestation was observed during January 2020 at all the three locations. However, in the present study, V. jacobsoni infestation was seems to be at low level and not causing any detrimental effect to A. cerana colonies. This study also revealed the higher preference of V. jacobsoni towards drone pupal brood for their reproduction as the number of infected drone pupal brood was significantly higher than the number of infected worker pupal brood at all the three locations.